Captive
She surveyed the figure crumpled lifelessly upon stippled planking, and the man standing over him , " I just hope you haven't hit him too hard and damage our spoils . Take him to the hold and lock him in . Have you got the papers ? Good .
Everything else is in order , I believe . Marvelous ! commend the crew for their hard work and give them an extra ration of rum tonight ". She added to Harry . We will have funeral services for Harlon and Old Jake later this evening . They were good men."
Harry nodded and set to work . Charlie not too gently hefted Daniel over one shoulder and climbed the space between the ships .
Once aboard the maiden , he crossed the shifting deck easily and carried his burden to the hold , where he carelessly dumped him in with the rest of the cargo .
When Daniel woke , it was an unpleasant experience , to say the least . The darkness of the enclosed space surrounding was absolute , stifling hot , smelled terrible . Other than that , he had no clue as to where he was or what had happened to put him there.
His head hurt ; he thought that might have something to do with it . Daniel put a hand up and gingerly felt the sore spot above his right ear, discovering that the blow he must have been dealt had only barely broken the skin.
Suddenly , as though the lump on his head had triggered his memory , the events of the past day came surging back to fill his fogged memory . The pirates , the defeat , his humiliation , He wished he hadn't woken up at all.
" Shit ", he swore , quietly
He knew there was little he could do to change what had happened ,. He was stuck here on this filthy floating den of iniquity;
And he he had lost his beloved ship to the pirates who had captured him . They played the pipes and he must dance to their tune, no matter how galling he found it. That was why , he supposed , it was to be the captor than the captive .
Thinking this only served to remind Daniel of his jailer . His beautiful jailer . He still couldn't believe it , That a woman of such comeliness could be sailing the seas under a buccaneer's flag strained the limits of his imagination and sent him reeling emotionally , confused , and angry for reasons he couldn't define.
But a woman like Captain Thorne , a woman of beauty and delicacy ; well, he simply could not get over his shock at the sight of her wearing breeches and carrying sword. Women like her served wine at manor houses in the country , or entertained guest at clubs and bars , covered in jewels without a thought in their head beyond the design if their newest gown .
pretty ladies simply should not be going about with weapons , attacking respectable men like him and consorting with pirates. It wasn't done . Something in his sense of the world had been knocked out of balance by his encounter with the pirate , and the feeling wasn't pleasant.
Daniel was appalled , and if there was the smallest spark of admiration in him for the woman who had brought him low , it was buried beneath a tidal wave of anger . She had taken away his life's dream when he had stolen the Empire. Beyond the galling fact that a mere woman had so easily ruined his first chance of success
was the wrenching sorrow Daniel felt for the loss of his prized frigate. No he didn't admire captain Thorne , he told himself determinedly , he hated her.
And this was the person with whom he was going to have to negotiate with. Daniel reluctantly accepted the idea of paying out a ransom, if it came to that . He was fairly confident of his ability to escape the pirates and their outrageous leader , but he knew that, on the slim chance he failed , he must be prepared to pay for his freedom.
For now ,he would appear to go along docilely with the wench's demands , in order to lure her and her men into thinking he had accepted his lot . Daniel would bade his time untill he found the perfect opportunity to slip from beneath their watch , rather than indulging in foolhardy heroics . A little fore thought and planning would serve him twice as well as a headlong leap into the fray , he decided.